A Google webmaster might occasionally contact you. Itâ??s usually never a good thing. Some people have received penalties for what Google are calling pure spam. Itâ??s a strange term and you donâ??t get much more information than this. Letâ??s discuss what pure spam is and what you can do to recover from Google penalties.

Specific Definitions

Google uses very specific definitions. You need it spelled out to you because none of these penalties are defined generally. Everything is very objective and thereâ??s no room for error. On one hand, this is a good thing because you know where you stand, but it can cause difficulties for beginners to understand what to do.

Pure spam is one of the easiest things to understand. Youâ??ve abused the Google guidelines too often. Theyâ??ve caught you doing something like scraping content from other websites or cloaking. These are aggressive spam techniques. Theyâ??re more serious than accidental spam techniques.

If youâ??re intentionally using these techniques, stop it right now. If you donâ??t know how it happened, you need help. Pay out for a site audit. Get someone who knows what theyâ??re doing to give you a hand. They can inspect your site to see where things have gone wrong. Some people have simply employed bad SEO firms to help them.

What Will Google Do to You?

In the beginning, Google will likely remove your website from the search engine rankings. Your traffic will plummet immediately. This is saddening, but itâ??s something youâ??re just going to have to deal with. Google gives everyone a chance, though. Concentrate on fixing everything for now.

We would recommend getting a reputable SEO firm to help you. Itâ??s unwise to attempt to mess around with things yourself. This often makes things worse. It might cost a lot of money, but the fact your site is on its back costs you a lot of money.

Once youâ??re confident youâ??re no longer breaking any Google guidelines, you can submit a reinclusion request. If they accept it, your site will be restored and youâ??ll start receiving traffic again.

Tips for the Reinclusion Request

â?¢ Check the original email notifying you of your penalty and make sure youâ??ve included everything you need to. Unless they ask for some sort of spreadsheet, donâ??t submit one. They wonâ??t open any files unless they were originally requested. Put a link in a Google document instead.
â?¢ Show youâ??ve actively made changes to resolve the issues. Donâ??t just stop the damage. Make it clear youâ??ve changed your siteâ??s policies to prevent it from happening again in the future. Google want to see some real effort!
â?¢ You need to demonstrate you mean it. Send them some emails of you firing the poor SEO team. They want to see some real remorse from you. They donâ??t want bad people to turn good just because they were caught. They want bad people to turn good because they have a genuine urge to change their ways.

On a side note, if you arenâ??t accepted back into the arms of Google, hire another professional and start again. If you keep submitting requests only to see them getting rejected the process will just take longer and longer. Your request will go down the list of priorities until theyâ??re simply ignored.

Is it Ever Worth Starting Again?

Thereâ??s always the nuclear option if things are so bad theyâ??re beyond fixing. It isnâ??t an option to take lightly. Getting a new domain and starting from scratch eliminates the work youâ??ve done in the past. In some cases, itâ??s the less time-consuming option.

Firstly, most problems have a solution. Itâ??s only when the solution outweighs the amount of time it takes to start again you should consider wiping the website. A common scenario where this might be appropriate is if you have lots of unnatural links which you canâ??t eliminate.

Before Google Penguin sites would place thousands of link neighbourhoods around the Internet. Itâ??s impractical to attempt to remove all these. Instead, these sites shut down and started again.

The moral of this article is to donâ??t do anything bad in the first place. If youâ??re currently participating in grey or black hat SEO practices, make the changes now before Google punishes you. If youâ??re in the middle of fixing things, Google might simply give you a warning instead of taking action.

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Simon Brisk is the head of manual outreach at Click Intelligence a search marketing agency based in London. Simon writes about search engine marketing tips, Google update recovery guides and his experience in the field of online marketing.